


Little Bird

by LiraelClayr007



Series: Bucky Barnes Bingo! [5]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Angst with a Happy Ending, Captain America Steve Rogers, Fairy Tale Elements, Fluff, M/M, Magic, Winged Bucky Barnes, Winged Steve Rogers, Wingfic, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, canon-typical hydra awfulness, to the end of the line--but with different words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27844567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiraelClayr007/pseuds/LiraelClayr007
Summary: No one knows why he was born with wings.“You’re just special, little bird,” his ma says.Stevie strokes Bucky's feathers and blinks back jealous tears. “I wish I could fly,” he whispers in the dark. “I wish I could be strong. Then I could grow up and fly away.”“But not…” Bucky whispers back.“Never. Never without you.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Bucky Barnes Bingo! [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1807465
Comments: 9
Kudos: 67
Collections: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020





	Little Bird

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I was pretty sure I, as a wholly committed winterhawk shipper, would never ever write this pairing. But the Muse handed this to me on the last day of NaNo and said, "Write"....so I wrote. And around every curve things took me by surprise.
> 
> Anyway, this may be the only time I ever write Stucky, but here it is. Enjoy.
> 
> All my love,  
> Lira 🏹
> 
> p.s. Thanks to ~~Squishy~~ uh, I mean, [Squaddy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/squadrickchestopher/pseuds/squadrickchestopher) for the quick beta and reassurance, and to Vex and Hope and Pherryt for yelling at me to write this (with love, always with love) even when I thought it was crazy.
> 
> _____
> 
> And hey look, this fits a bingo square too!!
> 
> **Bucky Barnes Bingo**
> 
> B3 - AU: WINGS

Bucky’s wings are shiny and black.

“A raven,” his ma tells him.

“Or a crow,” pipes up Stevie.

Bucky just looks at them with wide eyes.

“Both are clever,” says his ma.

“And beautiful,” whispers Stevie. He says it so quiet only Bucky can hear.

Bucky loves to fly.

He scared his ma something fierce, but he learned by jumping off the roof of their building.

“It’s how baby birds do it,” he tells her, and he’s right. When he was falling his body just knew what to do. “My wings just snapped open. I started to glide, and then I just...knew. I could flap or tilt or dive. It’s all instinct.”

“And what do _you_ know about instinct, master raven?” She’s scolding, but she’s proud too, he can tell.

“Right now my instincts are tellin’ me to run to Stevie’s place!” he whoops, and before she can make a grab for him he’s under her arms and out the door.

“Sometimes I wish I could stay in the clouds forever.”

He can feel Stevie tense up next to him, afraid he might just fly away and live up in the sky one day.

They’re on their backs, side by side in the grass in the park, watching the clouds go by. It all looks different to him now, since he’s touched the sky.

He moves his hand, just a little, so his little finger brushes against Stevie’s. “I couldn’t ever leave you. I love to fly, it’s better than just about anything. But not better than you.”

He doesn’t have to turn his head to know Stevie is smiling.

No one knows why he was born with wings.

“You’re just special, little bird,” his ma says.

Stevie strokes his feathers and blinks back jealous tears. “I wish I could fly,” he whispers in the dark. “I wish I could be strong. Then I could grow up and fly away.”

“But not…” Bucky whispers back.

“Never. Never without you.”

He promises right then–not out loud where it’s just words, but deep in his heart, where it’s something _true_ –that he won’t let Stevie be stuck here alone. He’ll help Stevie be strong.

But sometimes promises are broken.

“They think I can be a good fighter, and sneaky, surprising people from above. We’re learning combat flight.”

Steve’s eyes widen. “So there are others? Like...like you?” He runs a finger along the edges of Bucky’s wing, feathers glinting in the sunlight.

“A few. They’re putting together a team.”

He doesn’t know how to say goodbye.

Bucky’s had his training, he’s got his fancy new uniform, he’s got his cocky smile. But he’s still not ready to leave. This is his place, this city of light and wonders. How can he possibly...

He _can’t_ say goodbye. Not to Stevie. 

In the end he doesn’t.

“I’ll see you soon,” he says.

“I’ll miss you,” he says

“I’ll always come back to you,” he says.

He looks into Steve’s eyes as he reaches back and plucks a long black feather from his right wing.

“That’s a flight feather! You shouldn’t–”

“Hush. It was loose already, and itchin’ at my brain. Now it’s not makin’ me crazy.”

“But–”

“It’s already done.” He presses the feather into Steve’s palm, and if he holds their hands together a little longer than necessary, no one notices. It’s all they can do, here in the sunlight.

“Goodb–”

“No, Stevie. No goodbyes. Just see you later.”

He doesn’t know how long they’ve been here, or where here can even be, or what’s happening to him or the others anymore. Is it dark magic? Or is it just poison, pumped into his veins, makin’ him shout, makin’ him scream.

He might be the only one of the team left alive. At first he’d been allowed to catch glimpses, but that…

He cannot think of time. Minutes, hours, days, weeks. Maybe even months. All are irrelevant.

He only knows pain.

Steve’s wings are white as freshly fallen snow, white as perfect summer clouds. At first Bucky thinks he must be dead, that he’s in heaven being greeted by an angel, but then the angel has Steve’s voice ( _“Bucky? What did they do to you?”_ ) and almost Steve’s face.

Whatever someone did to _him_ , it made him big, and strong, and it gave him big wings so white they nearly glow. So white it’s almost painful to look at him.

Bucky stares anyway, even as Steve touches a gentle finger to his cheek.

“Hiya Buck.”

Bucky cannot speak.

Steve’s a natural leader. They all follow him, that blaze of white streaking through the sky. Nothing can stop him.

Nothing.

_Stevie. I don’t know what happened, but it hurts. I’ve never–Stevie I’ve never felt pain like this. Not even when…_

_I think I might be dead. Or maybe I should be. And something is wrong, very wrong, I think something is missing._

_Oh god Stevie, I think they’re pulling out my feathers please, please make it stop–_

**Ready to comply.**

**Ready to comply.**

**Ready to comply.**

The Target has white wings. It has white wings that shine, that...blaze. ( _Why does the Asset think_ blaze _?_ ) The Asset is momentarily confused, it is enough for the Target to knock away its primary weapon.

It has more. It draws a knife, solid and comfortable.

But the Target will not engage.

“What did they do to you, Bucky?” The Target sounds sad. Angry.

The Asset does not understand. “Who is Bucky?” it asks. The name pings something. It hurts.

Lashing out with the knife, the Asset says, “You have to fight!” The Asset is not supposed to feel. It is supposed to follow orders. To fight. To kill.

The Target only steps aside. “I won’t fight you, Buck.”

Turmoil roils inside the Asset. This is not the way. He–it– _it_ falls to its knees. “You have to fight,” it says again, pleading this time, looking up at the Target, knife hilt biting into its hand.

The Target moves again, slowly. It reaches for...not a weapon. Not a weapon. Not a–

A feather. A long, shiny black feather.

Another _ping_ deep inside the Asset.

Crouching in front of the Asset, the Target speaks. Soft. Low. “It’s yours, Buck. You gave it to me the day you left for the war. Not goodbye, you said. Just see you later, you said.” The Target smiles, and the Asset is flooded with someone else’s memories. It doesn’t understand, these cannot be real. The Target is smaller, and the Asset is smaller, and…

A spike of pain, a slash of fear. How did the Target do this, put these things inside his– _NO!_ –inside _its_ head? It clasps hands to its temples, dropping the knife.

“It’s gonna be okay, Buck. I promise.” The Target pulls hands from face, holds the feather so it is pressed between their palms. Target and Asset fingers interlock.

“You said you’d come back to me. It took awhile, but look. Here you are, and here I am.” The smile again, the one that pierces him deep inside. It’s the tears in the blue eyes that does it, he never likes seeing Stevie–

There’s a jolt, a pain in his chest. Yes, in _his_ chest. He looks at… “I’m Bucky,” he says, and he knows his voice is going to crack, going to shatter into a million pieces. He doesn’t know what’s happening, doesn’t know if it will last, but he’s going to hold on until it’s gone. “I’m Bucky,” he says again, almost choking. “I’m Bucky Barnes, and you’re Steve, my Stevie, my…” His words become incoherent, but Stevie understands.

“I knew you’d come back,” Steve says, pressing their foreheads together.

And then the years come rushing back, piling one terror upon another until there’s no room for breath, no room for blood. The sun-baked road bites into his knees but he gladly takes the pain; it tells him this is real, he is here and Steve is here even though he doesn’t understand how he got to this unknown stretch of blacktop. Or why Steve is holding his hand instead of running away, or killing him.

“I’m a monster, Stevie,” he says, and there are hot tears on his face.

He’s surprised his eyes remember how to cry.

Steve pulls Bucky into his arms, holding him tight right there in the day. “You’re not a monster,” he says. “Just a raven who lost his wings. My beautiful bird, coming to make my nest complete.”

There’s a crack in his chest and his heart breaks completely–but no. It’s not broken, it’s...beating. Another forgotten thing.

And then Steve is kissing him, and he forgets everything. There are fingers along his jaw and then in his hair and he’s got a hand at Stevie’s waist, pulling him closer, closer. Their hands are still clasped, his feather between them, the last feather, but that doesn’t matter because Stevie’s here again and he knows what Bucky’s become and he’s still kissing him. Still holding him.

Still loving him.

Where does the magic come from? Is it the feather? Is it Stevie? Is it the kiss, the first one they’ve ever shared in the sunlight?

The pain is blinding. No one ever says that magic is painful, but this is horror, it is knives and fire and demons clawing at his back. But after a blink it is...clean. He still wants to scream with the agony, but he knows something good is coming, something worth fighting for. Stevie holds him through it all, murmurs into his ear. “It’s okay, I’ve got you, I love you.” It goes on for hours–or only moments, he’s lost to everything–and at the end there’s one last _whoosh_ of agony, then a thunderclap at his back, where air is thrust away to make way for the shiny black wings, bigger and somehow brighter than before.

Steve’s eyes shine with wonder. “I’ve missed you, little bird,” he says, helping Bucky to his feet.

Bucky, still drunk with the intensity of it all, looks over at Steve and says, “Little? Listen punk, pretty sure I could take the likes of you.”

With a smile that warms Bucky all the way to his toes, Steve says, “You can take me _anywhere_ , Buck. I promise.”

Bucky flies as high and as true as he did back in Brooklyn, but now he always has his Stevie at his side on the ground _and_ in the sky. His wings, before always black as night, now have a single flaw: his right wing, near about where he once plucked a keepsake for his sweetheart, now boasts a single white flight feather. 


End file.
